“It was an experiment”: The album that saved Radiohead
As is more than evident by now, Radiohead have never achieved anything by sticking to the rules. They were the band that broke up Britpop, for God’s sake – everything was done with an alternative edge, whether sinister, bizarre, or anywhere in between. Yet there does come a limit. There’s only as much innovation and pioneering sound as one can ever cultivate, and in the late 2000s, it seemed like the bust was possibly up.
Tracking this back to the release of their seventh studio album In Rainbows, critical acclaim was flooded upon the band with the record shooting to the top spot in both the UK and US, a series of hit singles, as well as a string of Grammys and a nod from the Mercury Prize. Not a bad day’s work. But the point was that although this champagne lifestyle was obviously lavish and lovely, appealing to the mainstream was never what Radiohead set out to achieve, and beneath all the luxury plaudits, they perhaps felt they had lost their way.
As such, after the mania of In Rainbows had eventually frittered away, Thom Yorke and Co well and truly sensed that it was time to return to the drawing board. In the end, the result was 2011’s King of Limbs – but the process of getting there was tenuous, pushing even Radiohead to the limits of sonic eccentricity that they had never dared venture to before.
The disparity was made all the more clear since In Rainbows had followed a pretty formulaic indie rock sound – enjoyable and accessible to the masses, sure, but any Radiohead fan will know that this was never part of Yorke’s vision. In turn, it was no real surprise that King of Limbs enacted a complete pivot, but in the frontman’s own words, he wasn’t even sure what the results were going to be when they first started out.
Being born out of a series of sessions in which the band took a punt on looping, rhythmic interplay, and a whole host of other techniques and technologies that they weren’t fully sure how to use, Yorke admitted: “Yeah, I mean, it was an experiment. I didn’t think we really genuinely thought anything would come out of it, certainly not an entire record.” But this layered, textural approach invigorated something far bigger than just an album – it was the drive to push further again, rather than just veer down the mainstream.
In this sense, King of Limbs was not just a fresh sonic pathway but an entire new lease of life for Radiohead; the album that almost saved them from the monotony of themselves and reminded them exactly of what their calling card was meant to be. This was not a band that set out to be normal – they gained attention through cult-like oddities, beguiling natures, and warping sonics. They were there for the scenic route, because the motorway of the mainstream was far too plain sailing.
Of course, as is the case with these things, Radiohead’s overtly experimental approach on King of Limbs didn’t garner them anywhere near as much acclaim as its predecessor album – but that was, indeed, perhaps the point. They didn’t need the adoration of the masses to prove anything, because all their lives, the band walked to the beat of their own drum, and hell mend anyone who tried to steer them back on course.
